During the PlayStation gamescom 2014 press conference, Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert took the stage to announce The Tomorrow Children, a PlayStation 4 exclusive that’s “a little outside the box.”
Here’s the brief description:
When an ambitious experiment designed to unite the minds of all humanity went horribly wrong, almost all life on Earth disappeared instantly, melting down into the planet to form “the Void”.
Generate “projection clones” with different classes, skills and tools, explore the Void, gather valuable resources and rebuild our ruined civilisation town by town. Create Combatants and use weapons to fend off the monstrous “Izverg” – giant beasts that now roam the Earth. Co-operation is key – your planet needs you.
Following the reveal at gamescom, Cuthbert went on the PlayStation Blog, saying, “Hopefully you’ve seen the trailer by now (isn’t that music awesome!) and had a glimpse of the rather odd, vibrant and peculiarly Soviet world we’ve spent the past few years inventing!”
He then went through the what you can expect from The Tomorrow Children:
The Tomorrow Children is the story of a future re-imagined from the after-effects of an experiment in 1960s Russia that attempted to ‘sublime’ the human race, or meld all human minds into one global consciousness. Unfortunately it went wrong and decimated the planet, and it took the next 90 years for the few humans left to rebuild to the point where they have created you, the player, as a ‘projection clone’. You’re tasked with venturing out into ‘The Void’ to reclaim the human race and restore it to its former glory!
The survivors of the experiment have created a society based on Marxist ideals from the 1960s. As you can imagine those ideals have become slightly distorted by the flow of time, and even technology has advanced in unexpected directions.
You begin as a proletariat or normal citizen class. Every little thing you do garners recognition points that you can cash in at the labour office to earn coupons from the state. These ‘ration’ coupons can be cashed in for better abilities. For example, don’t want to line up anymore? Then get yourself the “Sharp Elbows” perk and push in like a bossy bourgeoisie!
The first thing you’ll be expected to do is explore and mine for materials, because the town needs as many resources as it can get to defend itself from the marauding attacks of the Izverg – giant monsters that roam the Void. The islands you visit to mine resources are also generated by the Void and contain all kinds of strange things, including monsters and treasure. They usually come in the shape of symbolic structures or objects from humanity’s past.
The human race will only survive if we cooperate, and as you do things your projection will become briefly visible in other player’s realities. Everything you do to manipulate the world is shared with everyone else in each stage.
For example, if you find someone toiling away in the dark, hold your flashlight steady for them and they will see your projection appear behind them to light their work. If you or they fall into darkness for too long they will lose coherency and be reset back to the town, losing their hard-earned recognition points. If anything scares you there is also the chance you might lose coherency and have your projection reset.
With the mined resources you can craft buildings and items (such as gun turrets, light fixtures, cars and tanks) that everyone can use together to grow the town and defeat the Izverg.
The main goal is to restore the population of the world and you will discover strange Matryoshka dolls which contain the raw DNA essence of the devastated populace. Taking these to the restoration points in the town will bring them back to life and they’ll start working on the town, carrying things around and repairing it for you (when they feel like it!).
Every couple of days an election is held and everyone votes on the mayor they wish to be elected. And choosing the right mayor is crucial. One mayor might lower the resource cost of all buildings by 20%, while another might increase weapons’ efficiency, allowing the turrets to reload more quickly – handy when there is a swarm of spiders attacking!
What do you think of The Tomorrow Children?
